Terrifying And Strange And Beautiful
by artamisward
Summary: They may be damned and cursed but they're together. And that is terrifying and strange and beautiful.


Disclaimer: I don't own Frozen or it's characters. I'm just using them for a little while.

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**Terrifying And Strange And Beautiful**

_Peace couldn't be brokered with nations fearful of the Snow Queen's powers. They rose against Arendelle mighty and numerous. But, Arendelle's subjects raised arms under their Queen's banner and fought. And, held their ground._

Elsa's heart hammers against her chest, her eyes feasting on the sight she's stumbled upon from her high wall. Frost radiates out from underneath the palms and fingers gripping the parapet as she leans further out—and closer to—the creature bathing in a secluded alcove no more than fifty feet from her under the noonday sun. The queen should be on the battlefields, at war leading her armies.

But Elsa is weary of war and famished for something she can't name. So, she feeds what's hungriest in her at that moment: desire.

She watches without blinking for the duration of the ablution. Elsa returns to the same spot the next day, and the one after that, and the one following that, all to the same sight. The growing hunger gnaws at her incessantly. Until Elsa _must have_.

A trail of melting, icy footprints follows her down the winding staircases and narrow hallways. The castle is quiet, a skeletal crew of servants shouldering the burden of keeping it while its young and healthy fight to keep it free.

The soft hissing of her ice gown dissolving in the heated water pulls Anna's attention. She squeaks a surprised _Elsa _as she turns to face her. Hungry eyes rake over naked flesh. War and hard times have taken the roundness from Anna's face and pulled the strength of muscle from formerly soft flesh. The princess is lanky but sinewy, much like Elsa herself. But, despite that, time has treated Anna well and her eyes are still soft with life and optimism.

Elsa doesn't envy her sister the weight of that hope; but she would never rob her of it, either.

Anna's eyes devour the naked queen before her in return, hungrily. Elsa can feel the perusal like a physical touch.

Steam rises from the contrast of her temperature and the hot water surrounding her. Elsa's cold breath puffs as white vapor when she expels it, but she doesn't freeze the water she's in, she doesn't even lower its temperature. Elsa doesn't allow the cold to extend outside her body; she keeps a tight rein over her power. Time has taught her control. And, she has always been an excellent student. She walks through water and steam as the epitome of the Snow Queen, more often Ice Witch, they call her. The queen is great and terrible.

Ice forms under her palms as she places them on either side of Anna's head at the edge of the bath. Their bodies are inches away. Elsa stops.

"My queen," Anna shivers.

"Princess," Elsa's cold breath washes over Anna's face.

Blue gazes lock and the years fold back. Memory opens a door Anna's marriage slammed shut years previous. Elsa remembers the thing she's starving for but couldn't name. Sudden longing pierces her. Anna used to call their relationship a long series of _indiscretions_. The memory hurts, but the pain doesn't show on her face or eyes. She's now well practiced at subtlety and obfuscation.

"Elsa." Anna is trembling but not from cold. Her warm hands rest heavily on Elsa's shoulders. The redhead isn't pushing her away just clutching her desperately.

"Anna," it's a whisper lost in the space that Elsa is closing between the final inches separating them.

Cold lips land on a turned cheek. Elsa is not deterred. She languidly kisses a trail up Anna's jaw as her body moves to close the final inches between them. Anna's hands still don't stop her; they slip up to her neck and hair in invitation instead.

"Kristoff," Anna's voice holds no resolve, or even protest.

"Is on the frontlines of some battlefield," Elsa licks the earlobe she's whispering into.

That statement shakes the princess into reality. Hands now push at pale shoulders. "Elsa," she shudders as a kiss lands on a sensitive part of her neck, "we can't." Elsa ignores her and keeps on leaving cold kisses across hot skin. Anna struggles more within herself than with the blonde. "Elsa…I'm married…Kristoff…w-we can't…not again…"

"You knew," Elsa voice is sure where her sister's is uncertain, her hands leaving icy handprints on the wall as they move down smooth skin. "You knew Kristoff was gone, Anna. You knew where I would be. You knew I would watch. You knew I would come." Cool hands press into soft breasts. Anna breathing is ragged. "You've put yourself on display. For me." Elsa rolls excited nipples between her chilled fingers. But guilt spreads through her with an icy grip she's never physically felt before. Kristoff is a good man; she's betraying him. They're betraying him. "Tell me you don't want this, Anna. Tell me to stop." Elsa pleads knowing it's the only way she'll stop, only if Anna asks…she would never impose her will on her sister. She isn't a monster.

Anna licks her lips. Her blue eyes stare at Elsa hazy and darker than usual, and she opens her mouth to speak, but words escape her.

Elsa watches her try again and pulls her hands away because she can see the denial even if the words can't be formed. She grits her teeth and ignores the gaping hole forming in the middle of her chest, again.

Anna releases an injured keen and pulls Elsa to her before crashing their mouths together. The kiss is hard with years pent up desire. There's no sweetness to it, only frustration and bitterness and unquenchable passion. _We're damned…we're damned…_is Anna's mantra as they slosh out of the water and lay on the sun-warmed stones of the alcove.

Elsa agrees but she can't wait and she can't stop. She's between Anna's legs before they're fully laid down. The sun beats on her back as Anna cries her name into a blue sky. The years disappear and her mouth, tongue, hands, fingers find the rhythm and beat that's always made Anna fall apart.

The redhead doesn't stop shaking even after her orgasms have run their course. Elsa's heart constricts painfully when she realizes Anna is crying. Any comfort Elsa can offer is halted as strong arms and legs flip their positions, and Anna is ravenous on Elsa. Hot tears fall on Elsa followed by a hot tongue, it's distressing and wonderful and bittersweet. Like all of their _indiscretions _have always been.

The queen and princess cry because they are betraying vows, people, and each other. But, they don't stop. They don't stop at one hard and fast coupling on the sun-warmed stones of Anna's private bath. They don't stop at two or three or four _indiscretions_...they are famished for each other. Their hunger and thirst quenched only in each other.

It is terrifying and strange and beautiful. Everything hinges on each successive moment.

Elsa should be at war but she's still ensconced in her castle, attending her sister and attempting to not allow her emotions to get involved in the convoluted matter. It's only been a few days; Anna won't throw away years of a marriage for that.

Anna bursts franticly into Elsa's room, her motions agitated but her voice mute. Elsa sits her down and holds soft hands until the redhead calms enough to speak. Her heart is in her throat but she presents a calm façade as the words spill from Anna's lips.

"It could be Kristoff's," Elsa's not looking at her sister, "he was here just a fortnight ago."

"No, Elsa," Anna voice shakes but doesn't break, "no. He didn't…we didn't…not for a long time…it's not his. Kristoff isn't the father."

Elsa buries her face in Anna's knees. She's overwhelmed: ecstatic and terrified. "How?"

"I don't know, Elsa. How do create snow with a thought? How do you form ice from nothing? How do you not feel cold? How do you make snowmen come alive? How do you control natural weather patterns?" Anna's staring down at a blonde head her voice getting higher and faster the more she asks unanswerable questions.

"Anna, stop," Elsa stands, pulling the redhead up into an embrace, "Calm down."

Anna returns the embrace tightly. "You too."

The chill in the air and the frost climbing up the walls surprises Elsa. It's the first time in several years she has been unaware and lost control of her powers.

"The how is irrelevant, I guess," Anna's breath is warm against the side of Elsa's face, "You're walking, talking magic. I suppose it was kind of inevitable."

They're quiet for a long while, their embrace a small comfort.

"I'll call Kristoff from battle," Elsa finally speaks into the quietness and stillness.

"Why?" Anna pulls far enough out of their embrace to look Elsa in the eyes.

"We share enough general characteristics that no one will question the child's parentage."

Anna pulls out of the embrace completely. "You want me to…"

Elsa grits her teeth. No, of course, she doesn't _want_ that, but she can't risk Anna being in a comprising position. "He is your husband."

"I'm not the only who forgot that fact over the last few days," Anna's indignant.

"But, you're the one who married him in the first place," the words explode out of Elsa's chest with the force of half a decade of pent up concealment.

Anna seems shocked. Elsa turns away, but she won't run no matter how much she wants to. "I'll have him here in a day. And, we will do what we must. I will not have your reputation tarnished because of me."

"Elsa…"

"Anna, please, there's no easy fix here," the queen slips her mask on before turning back to the most important person in her world. "But, I will fix this."

Elsa leaves Anna in her room as she leaves to finds a messenger.

It seems but a moment before her sister's husband, her brother-in-law, stands before her ragged from battle. She doesn't look him in the eyes.

"Highness," his voice is cheerful, it grates against her heart, "I am here at your request."

Elsa loses her voice, all the words jam uncomfortably in her throat. She can't ask him to sleep with Anna. She doesn't want to ask him to. Jealousy burns through her.

"Anna tells me you've spent the last two days sleeping and eating out in the barn with Sven." Elsa doesn't know what to make of this.

He looks sheepish but nods.

"Kristoff, you are the crown prince of Arendelle, you're royalty." She turns her back to him.

"A title doesn't royalty make, your majesty." He's serious and Elsa remembers his humble origins and the fact that he's a good person.

"Elsa, please." She doesn't know what to say to the man who she's stabbed in the back, the man she's trying to manipulate.

"Besides," he walks up and stands next to her, "shouldn't a prince be out there leading, doing what he expects others to do?"

"Anna misses you." A lie, but necessary at the moment.

"And I miss her," his sincerity makes Elsa avert her face and cringe.

"Then, go to her," the words cost Elsa.

Kristoff hesitates, but only momentarily. "I will not go and indulge in the warmth and comfort of home when our people are out in the battlefields spilling blood and dying for us, my queen. I cannot." He's far too good a man for what Elsa is going to do to him.

Elsa nods. "At least, go rest with your wife until morning." She tries one last time. "I will send you back to the battle with orders for the general at dawn."

Kristoff nods, relieved somehow, before bowing and taking his leave.

Elsa can see he's walking back out into the cool night instead of the warm hearth with his wife further inside the castle. She sits at her desk with a heavy heart and begins writing. She presses her royal seal into the hot wax sealing the orders before pressing her index finger against the cooling wax and freezing it.

Elsa doesn't walk to Anna's room. She won't slight Kristoff so shamelessly on top of being a monster to him. She sits at her window and doesn't sleep.

Morning comes too soon. Elsa walks outside to meet the Prince of Arendelle, it's the least she can do. She swallows and hands him the envelope. Neither notices the few degree temperature drop, the sun's too hot.

Kristoff takes the envelope and puts it inside his vest. Elsa knows he will never open it, never read its contents. He is an honest, honorable man. Elsa wants to weep.

"I shall join you in a fortnight," Elsa says softly, unable to look at him.

"The general will be happy to hear that," he smiles.

"Kristoff," she pulls his attention from readying Sven, she wants to tear the letter in half, burn its contents into ashes.

"Elsa," his voice is playful. He rarely calls her Elsa.

Something shrinks and dies inside the queen. "Godspeed."

He nods. And, he is handsome and regal as he rides toward his death.

_General,_

_Put Kristoff in the middle of the hottest part of a battle. Then, retreat and leave him without aid._

_I shall join you in a fortnight._

_Queen Elsa of Arendelle_

The general reads and rereads the queen's orders. His hands don't tremble as he throws the letter in the fire and watches it catch and burn into nothing. His voice doesn't shake as he calls a messenger to get the prince. His posture doesn't waver as he discusses a surprise attack the prince is to lead on an enemy-saturated flank.

"Son," the general's faith in his queen wobbles, "you could die."

Kristoff straightens. "Will success help end this war quicker?"

Theoretically, yes. He nods at the young man.

"Then it's worth it."

The queen arrives a week early, weary and wilting under the weight of responsibility and guilt. Elsa walks into the general's tent.

"Is it done?" There's no preamble.

His eyes are inscrutable. "We are picking up our dead from the fields."

She walks out with the tall, gray-haired man to where a large group of people have gathered around a cart with a covering thrown over it. There's a silence and a stillness in the air that hallows the atmosphere. Tears flow freely from rugged faces and Elsa's heart trembles. She grabs the edge of the tarp and hesitates. The weight of what she's going to find underneath the covering staggers her.

She gathers herself enough to pull away the tarp. Elsa wishes she hadn't. Bile rises in her throat as she looks at the lifeless corpse of her brother-in-law. His chest is a bloody mess and his face is devoid of all color. The sword Elsa herself gave him, cleaves to his lifeless hand, the metal fused to his skin because he used it so fervently. She doesn't want to imagine his last moments, but her mind projects image after image of his demise…and her part in it.

Elsa looks at the creature laid beside Kristoff and she feels the icy shards of guilt dig just that bit deeper. Sven.

"Stupid beast," a young soldier, no more than eighteen, speaks without prompting, "wouldn't leave his side when the prince didn't hear the retreat."

Her heart thudded sluggishly in her chest and the edges of her vision blackened. Elsa covered them reverently. "Take them to the castle to be prepared for burial."

She would give them the honor of a royal funeral. She turned to the general. "Demand an unconditional surrender from the general of the Southern Isles."

Her general raised an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent, on the surrender and on the dead prince.

"They have until midday tomorrow."

The messenger's head is returned and no other part of him as a response. Elsa doesn't flinch or recoil from this sight. She feels her blood cooling in her veins, it burns and reminds her that she's going to end this war and all that follow no matter the cost.

"Do we have prisoners?" Elsa addresses her general.

"Yes, my queen." His voice doesn't tremble but the woman before him scares him.

Elsa nods as if coming to a silent decision. "Take our whole company and retreat to the hills overlooking this valley. At noon tomorrow, have the prisoners observe the demise of their army. Then, release them."

The commotion of an entire army moving isn't what keeps the queen up all night. Images of Anna receiving her husband's body plague her. She had done the right thing. Kristoff could've ruined them; he couldn't anymore. No one would dare question the child's parentage.

As dawn approaches and passes, Elsa finds the silence of the abandoned camp familiar. She has always been alone. Silence is her natural element. Abandonment is her playground. The atmosphere suits her mood and the heaviness of her heart well.

The sun reaches its zenith and she moves silently to the place where she will do what she has promised herself she would never do: she will unleash her power and disregard the cost of life. Elsa has no choice. She has a child on the way (the thought makes her heart tremble inside her ribcage). And, that means this war must end. For Anna's sake. And, the child's sake.

"Well, well," the smooth smugness of that voice sets Elsa's nerves on edge, "if it isn't the Snow Queen." Hans' smirk immediately makes Elsa's mood darken.

He dismounts and saunters toward her. Elsa refrains from freezing him on the spot, she's not entirely sure why.

"If I didn't know better, I would say there was a coup happening in Arendelle," he circles the queen, "What, with all the royalty coming out to their own deaths."

The oblique mention of Kristoff makes Elsa wince internally, but her outer poise doesn't alter.

Hans steps close to Elsa, his hot breath making her skin crawl. "But, I do know better, highness," his whisper mocks in her ear, "the prince fought valiantly, even when his men deserted him. The betrayal in his eyes was so intriguing to watch. He knew that you killed him so you could have the princess. Anna: such a sweet morsel."

Elsa slaps Hans so hard he stumbles back. "I will take great pleasure killing you."

He draws his sword with a snarl but great snow arms bind his hands and force him to his knees. He struggles to no avail.

"Now watch and see how truly dangerous I am." Elsa unshackles her power. And, it's over in a brief flash. The field before her is frozen solid. Every creature, human and beast alike, dead. It's a frozen cemetery. But to Elsa it feels like an eternity. She feels the heat of every being seep out of their bodies until there is nothing left but ice. She feels thousands of heartbeats shudder to a sudden stop. She's a monster; and for the first time, she feels the weight of that moniker. _I'm so sorry._

She turns to a stunned Hans. Fear enters his eyes. That pleases Elsa. She freezes his limbs first, slowly.

"No! No! Mercy," Hans screams in agony, "please."

Elsa ignores him. She freezes his blood and watches as his heart seizes on itself. "You will be the only figure I shatter, Hans. You should be flattered I hate you that much." His expression of terror is frozen in place. Elsa opens her palm, she can feel the molecules of Hans' frozen figure. She concentrates her will on destroying every bond that holds it upright and slams her hand closed. Hans shatters into a million pieces.

It's a hollow satisfaction. Elsa mostly feels empty.

She turns to the assembled crowd on the hills. "This is the fate of all who oppose Arendelle."

Elsa can feel the fear. There's little she can do about that. She just wants to go home. Wrap herself in the arms of the only person who has ever touched her solitude and assuaged her loneliness.

But, Anna doesn't appear to greet her on her return. She doesn't see her sister until Kristoff's funeral. And, Anna doesn't address a single word at Elsa. All the princess gives her is a sidelong glance.

And, Elsa knows that Anna knows everything. The knowledge is crippling and her heart wants to shrivel and die at Anna's blatant desire to stay away from her.

The days bleed slowly into weeks and Elsa finds herself numb. She's cried and cried and emptied herself and found no solace. This is her punishment as it was when Anna married. But, at least, Anna is safe. And the child will be safe. Small comforts, but Elsa will take anything she can get.

The creak of her door startles her. The sight of Anna walking through makes her knees buckle. She sits on her window seat.

"You're awake," Anna's not surprised.

"The sky is awake," Elsa shrugs.

"Isn't that my line," the smile doesn't reach Anna's eyes.

"I find I sleep very little these days," Elsa confesses, "the effects of a guilty conscience, I suspect."

Anna says nothing but she sits on the untouched bed facing the queen.

"I can't recall how we handled over a decade of this," Elsa vaguely indicates the space between them.

"Very poorly, as I recall," Anna deadpans.

A humorless laugh escapes the blonde.

"The sexual aspect of our relationship makes this time much harder," Anna continues. The words make Elsa blush. "The fact that we're having a child makes it impossible to continue this estrangement."

"I'm not hiding," Elsa reminds the redhead.

"I married Kristoff because I wanted to give us a chance to be normal," the non sequitur pulls Elsa up short. Anna stands and paces to release whatever pent up energy working through her system. "I wanted us to not be what we were. I wanted not to wreck us. I wanted normalcy."

"I know," Elsa stares at the floor, "that's why I let you marry him. That's why I didn't push…not until you pushed me." Now Anna blushes.

"But, we aren't," at Elsa's raised eyebrow, Anna expounds, "normal." She approaches Elsa and straddles her. Elsa almost bites her lip clean through at the contact, especially after a long three weeks of nothing. "We're cursed." Anna presses her forehead to Elsa's cool one. "We're damned." The kiss is surprisingly tender.

Elsa melts into it, clinging to Anna.

"I understand, Elsa," Anna is crying, "I understand why you did it. In your place, I would've done the same thing."

Elsa runs her hands up and down a warm back in comforting gestures. She has nothing to say. She knows Anna speaks truth.

"Does it scare you?" Anna asks hotly against the ear beneath her mouth.

"What?" Elsa fights to clear her mind.

"The lengths we are willing to go for each other," hot tears fall on Elsa's cold neck.

"Yes," loving Anna is a terrible burden. Elsa suspects her sister feels much the same.

Anna stands and wipes her tears. "No more sticking innocent people between us, okay." She extends her hand toward the blonde.

Elsa swallows and takes Anna's outstretched hand. They make vows to each other and consecrate them in flesh and pleasure.

They may be damned and cursed but they're together. And that is terrifying and strange and beautiful.

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A/N: Cookies for the anon who figured out what story I adapted this from ;) it was indeed David and Bathsheba.


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